


Tools

by cat_77



Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: Episode Related, Gen, Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, Non-Graphic Violence, Spoilers, Spoilers for episode 1.20
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-29
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:21:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23918218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cat_77/pseuds/cat_77
Summary: A surgeon loves his tools, those that can be shined and used again, and even those that are a little broken.[Major spoilers for the finale.]
Relationships: Whitly family - Relationship
Comments: 1
Kudos: 33





	Tools

He catches him at it one day. The very thing he had been teaching him about. The very thing he clearly already knew. The difference was it should never involve family. Not his family.

The combination of chemicals, the drug they had developed and tested time and time again was not strictly harmful in and of itself. It just made one more agreeable, more susceptible to suggestions, more willing to go outside of their normal behaviors and do what was needed to be done. Mix that with some relatively simple conditioning, basic level stuff really, and the results were truly fascinating.

The testing, of course, involved far more than getting the chemicals into the not-quite-volunteer. To know if the trials were successful, they needed the subject to carry out certain duties. If they succeeded, they passed on to the next round. If they failed, well, they ended up in Martin’s workshop to play with. Yes, he was simply supposed to discard them, but he saw the opportunity in a life already wasted. 

Endicott had wanted only to flip the switch on his victims, make them follow his whims. But he squandered them. Had them end their own lives after completing their assigned objective. Claimed the fix was complete and therefore the tool was no longer necessary. Endicott had been completely unapologetic when confronted with this realization and only taunted Martin that he need to think more about the act and less about what was used to perform it.

A surgeon always did love his tools. 

So he collected that which Endicott discarded. He cleaned and polished them and readied them to be used again. Well, that was the plan, but plans so rarely work on the first try. There were a few bumps in the road, a few times the the tool simply could not be scrubbed clean, far too damaged and dinged to shine again. But he learned from those too. He took them apart, laid out their pieces, and studied them to build again.

But then he made a mistake.

Both of them did.

Martin picked up what he thought was another tool to be sanitized only to discover it was something else entirely. It was something Endicott wanted gone to be certain, but Martin had done something he so rarely did and had misread the situation terribly. He had thought the girl was simply another subject that had been previously dosed when he saw her leave the fancy offices time and time again. He thought he would help his colleague out and dismantle her as he really had gotten a liking for the act after all. Truly, not all tools were meant to be used again and clearly this one was breaking down if she resisted so. It would also prove to be the perfect opportunity to see just what young Malcolm was made of, to see if he too could learn to put away his toys and to clean up tools left discarded.

Malcolm resisted, not yet ready for that important life lesson. That was fine though, as the tool, the girl he had tucked so neatly away, confided in him that she was a rarity after all. 

She had said no.

Endicott was not used to refusals and was also quite known for not liking others to play with his toys until he deemed them thoroughly and completely broken by himself. His wrath was legendary amongst those that knew him and often redefined the phrase scorched earth. Not a risk he was willing to take, not when there was so much more at stake, so much more to protect. So Martin let the girl go, lesson learned and all that.

Or perhaps not.

He returned home from that fateful camping trip to find his colleague sitting on his couch, drinking his tea with his daughter as per usual. A daughter that had the thousand mile stare that all the tools had once they were first shined and ready for use. That was far from usual. She was so small to have such a visage. So new to be used in such a way.

More importantly, she was family.

It was a threat, and one Martin knew not to take lightly. That said, he also knew he had an extremely limited time to correct what had been done. He could not undo it, not completely, his work was far too good for that and, also, he really hadn’t gotten that far in his research. But he was working to create a failsafe of sorts. The tool was still a tool to be sure, but that tool did not need to remember its function, did not need to know it had fished the buildup out of the drain when it preferred to sit neatly in a proper table setting.

He pretended to be cowed and pretended that he would of course obey for the safety of his family, a family that he knew Endicott wanted for himself - who wouldn’t, they were perfectly darling and so very, very, bright. He escorted him to the door and tried not to think of how he had likely spent hours with his daughter, perhaps had started the process over his numerous previous visits.

It took him days to discover what key phrase and physical triggers were used and what he could turn it into. It took him nearly that long again to ready the improvised failsafe. The rage he had witnessed in such a small thing was impressive and counter to the calm serenity he preferred with his usual subjects, preferred with life in general, but he knew that was just an extra affront against him. Know your enemy and all that.

When Endicott came for his weekly visit of drinks and shared research notes, he made his play. 

They both did.

“You must keep your little girl safe now, Martin,” he said. “I’d hate to see any harm come to her. Not one hair on her pretty little head.” He reached over at that, fingertips barely brushing where neck met shoulder, flattening the blonde strands against her red dress.

The blank look returned, the simmer to rage began, he watched it all with he very own eyes. The tea had been laced, a trick out of his own book, a final dose to push her over the edge, so perhaps she had not been as ready as feared. She broke the saucer of all things, sharpened edge pointed right at him while she stood and readied herself to attack. He forced himself to pretend not to have a care in the world as he calmly said, “Run along and play now, sweetie. That’s my girl.”

A blink and she was his little blonde moppet again. She looked down at the shard of porcelain in her hand and he lip trembled when she asked, “Did I break the plate, daddy? Am I in trouble?”

He took the shard from her and made sure there was not a scratch on her where it had been pressed against her palm. “Of course not, sweetie. Mistakes happen. I’ll clean up this mess, don’t you worry. It’s a daddy’s job to clean up messes.”

She left, just enough of the drug’s influence remaining to make her compliant while he turned to look at a mess far worse that a broken crockery. “Family, am I right?” he said as he brushed the other pieces into his hands. “Jessica won’t like this, not one bit, but I always find the need to protect them, even if it’s from a simple grounding.”

Endicott tilted his head, and Martin could almost see the cogs realigning, the pieces being rebuilt for the task. He pretended not to, of course. He walked away to discard the destroyed saucer and its matching unscathed cup as one would always notice something incomplete long before they noticed something missing entirely.

When he returned, it was to his colleague bidding an early goodbye, going to far as to kneel down and ruffle Malcolm’s hair. Martin hadn’t thought much about it at the time, but he spent the next twenty years doing precisely that as it was that night that a wayward police office found his way to his door, called by his unwitting son, a tool used against him in the worst of ways. 

He never blamed Malcolm. He was a child. He was family. He had been used and, unfortunately, Martin did not get a chance to shine him again, not right away. At least Endicott hadn’t discarded him, probably didn’t know how to successfully as Martin himself had always done that part though it was equally likely he simply wanted to wave him in front of him and remind him of what he had done.

Endicott had not been careful with his children, had not followed the precise protocols Martin had put in place. He likely didn’t understand them as he truly seemed like the type of idiot that thought if a little of something was good then a lot was better. It took visits, so many visits, to try to fix things.

Malcolm could never be fully repaired. The chloroform interacted poorly with his prized creation and left the child with gaps in his memory that were not the gaps Martin wished to curate. Maybe, with time and his lab versus a prison cell, he could have made more headway. Instead, he told himself that it was good enough that his child could not be manipulated in that way ever again. Well, manipulated by anyone other than him as he did keep a few turns of phrases around in case of an emergency.

Ainsley though. His beautiful, powerful daughter. He polished her up nicely, made sure that she would always be prized and never show the slightest speck of less than perfect. She had visited, nearly as often as Malcolm himself when they were younger. He’d ask her about school and life and everything else. He could never fully erase that one key phrase from her mind, but he managed to redirect, safeguard, protect. 

He triggered her on purpose once when she was barely seven, made it seem like Malcolm had wronged her, taken her toy or some such thing. When she stalked towards the guard instead of her brother, he smiled brightly and said, “That’s my girl!” She dropped as though her strings had been cut, looked around in confusion, and asked if it was time to go home as she was already leaving in her mind if she was so close to the exit.

An unfortunate side effect of the safeguard was the memory loss. She didn’t remember her visits, didn’t remember her Daddy Time, but it was worth it in the long run. It hurt when she asked for the interview and claimed to know nothing about him despite their hours together - hours that Jessica really didn’t know much about or at least didn’t register as something to mention when Ainsley stated the same to her. She likely brushed it off as her being so young those first two years anyway, and then their daughter showed absolutely no interest in returning after Martin managed another keyword or three in her direction. Jessica probably assumed she had forgotten and Martin played up the denial as much as he could if there was the chance it would keep her safe.

When he got the call from Malcolm, the lights and alarms around him were like fireworks of celebration. Twenty years in the making, his little tool, his precious daughter, had done precisely what she had been designed to do. Now he simply had to shine her once more, if he could be heard above the ruckus behind him. Projection was key in oration as well as blame, so he raised his voice just enough to carry through the silence that had fallen on the other side of the line, just enough stillness to balance the chaos.

“That’s my girl.”


End file.
